Popsicle Has No Healing Power For Adult Who Scrapes Her Knee

As a parent, I've had 10 years of experience with children's scraped knees. My 6-year-old daughter never walks. She runs. She has the knees of a pro basketball veteran.

Her 10-year-old brother has the knobby knees that come with dozens of spills on his skateboard and bicycle.

A little warm water to get off the road grime, followed by an ice pack, a bandage and a hug usually does the trick. If that fails, a Popsicle always soothes the pain and dries the watery eyes.

But what do you do when the klutz with the boo-boo on the knee is your wife?

Well past 1 a.m. one day last week, my wife pulled the car into our driveway. She was exhausted after a long drive back from Tallahassee and an intensive two-day refresher course in statistics as part of her graduate school courses. She was tired and not watching her step as she carried luggage and books in both hands. Tripping over landscape timbers by our front walk, she fell to her knees on the sidewalk. Ouch!

She stumbled into the house, dropped her bags and books and screamed bloody murder.

While her sleepy children watched, I examined the damage. She was in pain. I offered my best skinned-knee medicine -- a grape Popsicle.

After questioning my parents' marriage, she demanded a stiff drink to treat her knee from the inside out.

Later, after the ice had stopped the bleeding, my son, the one with knobby knees, cautioned her that once the blood dried, she wouldn't be able to bend her knees without breaking the scabs.

He was right. She has been walking with stiff knees for a week now.

Somehow Band-Aids under hose just don't fit her professional dress code, so she wore pants for the next few days. The bandages leaked through her white slacks the first day.

Usually, our children's skinned knees are worth a few minutes of sympathy. After a short rest on the couch while listening to their peers playing, they are up again and running back outdoors.

Maybe it is age, but more mature knees don't bounce back quite as fast. My wife is still hobbling around, complaining about her knees.

She says the next time she hears a scream from outdoors and finds one of our children clutching a tender knee, she is going to be more sympathetic.

I'm thinking about giving her knee pads before her upcoming trip to a professional conference in Atlanta. Who knows, maybe she'll set a trend? After all, the lastest fashions have women wearing Joan Crawford shoulder pads in their blouses and coats.